disrupt the negotiations, lead to suspicion, or because all Trill were
keeping their symbiont nature a secret at the time.

The second is that, not knowing that Tnll are a joined species, the Biofilter
might identify the slug part as a parasite and delete the pattern, killing both
the host and the symbiont. If this is true, then simply by turning off/adjusting
the Biofilter, Trills can transport like anyone else. Surely, once the unique
nature of the Trill was revealed, then all Federation Biofilters would be
reprogrammed to ignore the symbiont

The third is that some Trill symbionts would be damaged by the transport
process, and others wouldn’t be. This is proposed in the Encyclopedia.

“Can you transport through subspace?”

In TNG “Data’s Day”, the use of a subspace carrier wave was mentioned
as the method by which the transporter beam propagates.

In TNG “Bloodlines”, Bok has a subspace transporter, a technology which
was researched but later abandoned by the Federation. The range is at least 300
billion kilometers, and at most several light years and the subject is put into
a state of molecular flux. Doesn’t sound healthy. How is this different from
normal transport? Probably just a deeper level of subspace.

“Why can’t you be transported through shields?”

If you could be transported through shields, they’d be pretty lousy
shields. Just transport a bomb or boarding party over.

“But what about the time O’Brien used the shield frequencies. ..“
(TNG “The Wounded”)

Shields must allow some energy through to allow sensors to operate. To be
safe, these frequencies are cycled, allowing sensor windows. By knowing the
shield cycles, and the right frequencies, it is possible to adjust the
transporter to work at those few open frequencies, and slip past the shields.

Of course, if the destination ship detects you trying to beam through, they
can alter the shield frequencies and end the transport suddenly, with rather
messy results.

“What about in TNG ‘Relics’? They didn’t do anything special!”

One would imagine that shields and transporters are one technological race,
as sensors and cloaks are. The “enemy” is always trying to figure out a way
to transport through your shields, and thus you must always be trying to improve
your shields to block this. Hence, any 70-year-old shields, like those on the Jenolan,
would be transparent to modern transporters.

Alternately, Geordi and Scotty knew that the Enterprise would have to
beam them off the ship, and turned off the "transport blocking”
frequencies in the shields.

“How do replicators work?”

Replicators are based on transporter technology. A sample object is first
“scanned” into the memory of a computer.

Because even a simple object takes up an enormous amount of memory, the
object is only resolved at a molecular level, not a quantum level. Further, the
data must be compressed using a Iossy algorithm, meaning that small,
undetectable approximations are made to the data. This gives the computer a
pattern to create a duplicate of the original. (TNG TM)

Starships have a small supply of bulk material that is constantly recycled
into needed materials and items. When a request is made at a replicator
terminal, the waveguide conduit system on the ship relays a small amount of bulk
material to the replicator, which uses it to create the materials called for in
the pattern. The object is then beamed in at the terminal.

“Can replicators transmute elements?”

Yes... sort of. There have been occasions on the show where some required
element cannot be replicated. The Tech Manual talks about “quantum
transformational manipulation”, so they can do some quantum twiddling to get
new elements. However, it also says that the energy costs are high for all forms
of replication, and that food, since it's usually just different arrangements of
the same basic things (water, proteins, lipids), is more practical to replicate
from bulk matter than to store.

In TNG “Night Terrors”, when a certain substance is needed, Data says
“We no longer have the power to reproduce complex elements in the
replicator." This is evidence for the above.

“What about gold-pressed latinum?"

See above about energy costs and certain elements. It may be that
twenty-fourth century technology can’t transmute, say, elements above 140, and
that latinum (in gold-pressed form)